Attending Physicians

“The day of the loan, he called us and told us we could actually lower the interest rate that day if we wanted to wait a few days, which I don’t think many lenders would ever do. So it was a great experience, I’d recommend him to anybody.”

Dr. Tricia and Derek Twelves

“He gave us the best rate and our closing costs were comparable to the major banks out there. So you know, he was excellent, his rate was amazing and he’s just been a great person to work with. I have no complaints. We wish that we had gone with Drake sooner. We just had a really good experience with him and his team.”

Dr. Steven E. P., University of Washington Boise Internal Medicine

“We loved working with Drake. He was very prompt answering all of our questions and walking us through the loan process. I will definitely recommend him to others who are considering these loans.”

James Jordan, MD, Neurohospitalist, Everett Clinic

“I had a great experience! Sheila kept me in the loop with the whole process. No complaints at all. Thanks guys.”

Tyler Anderson, Larson Financial Group, The Physicians Specialist®

What we've created here is a page that is dedicated to you as a resident. Whether you are graduating med school, just starting in a residency or are a transferring resident, we've identifed some of the main problems with receiving an approval for a mortgage. And then we've identified the solutions that we have for you.

We'd invite you to look at each of the videos below and at the conclusion of them, you two choices: You can either call us and we'd be happy to do what we call a compatibility interview. We get a deeper understanding of your situation, we then tell you the specific solution that we have for you. Or, if you'd like to move forward right away, there is an application page and a place to upload your documents and we will get back to you with a financing proposal. Thanks for joining us and I hope you enjoy the videos.

There are a lot of things that we do that are different from other loan officers and other mortgage programs, but I can boil it all down to two really key points. And that is solutions and service. Whether it's one of our specialized physician programs, an FHA program or a conventional program, we have loan officers, pre-underwriters and final underwriters who have all been specially trained to identify and understand the unique sets of situations and contracts that physicians have. So whether you are going into residency, starting a new position or you are a self employed 1099'd or in private practice, we understand those complexities and we know how to place your loan with the correct loan program that will find the right solution for you. And I think that is very different than most lenders. You'll find out right from the beginning we have a deeper understanding of your situation.

The second thing is service. We understand that many times when you are relocating or transitioning between jobs, there is a tremendous amount of stress to pack around the moving, the relocating, kids - it just adds stress to everything. And if we put a complicated loan process on top of that, it can be too much to bear. We understand that we need to get as much documentation up front, we need to have a very clear, fundamental understanding of what your situation is - where you're going into practice, what your new contract looks like and when you need to be in your new home. Then we deliver excellence in service in guiding you to that place.

So, what I'd invite you to do is to take a look around the website and find out what these resources have to offer. You're going to see that we have a unique section for residents, for new physicians or physicians relocating and self employed, or private practice. Go there, enjoy those resources and then I'd invite you to contact us. Thanks so much, we hope we have the opportunity to help you.

This is a question we don't hear very often, but we think is on the minds of most residents when they come to us and that is what can we expect when we deal with your company?

Really, it's the fear of the unknown, right? We've all heard of clients that have had bad experiences. We go into the chat rooms and we see what physicians and residents are saying about their mortgage experiences because we want to learn from you. And we hear the horror stories. We've seen more horror stories in these chat rooms and online about physicians that have bad experiences. And if you have been there and seen those same things, then I am guessing that you've got some fear and a bit of apprehension about that.

So let me tell how it will work when you work with us. We're first going to start with a compatibility interview. This is where we decide if we're right to work with one another. I'm going to ask some question about what your situation is: What your student loans look like, how long your new residency contract is, how early before your contract date do you want to start. And then I'm going to say, okay, I've got a couple of ideas. And then I'm going to answer all of your questions. At the conclusion of that, we're going to decide if we're right to work together. If you feel comfortable we move forward with the application process that is very streamlined, five to ten minutes online we can take care of that.

If you are trying to get this done now, are working 70 hours straight through, have about ten minutes to catch some rest and don't have a spare minute to talk on the phone for a compatibility interview, then you can go down to the bottom of the page and fill out a loan application and get things rolling!

Then we're going to dive you a financing proposal. We're going to see our best estimate as what you can expect to see the day of closing. It will be very clear. We'll spend a few minutes over the phone going over it and you're going to say, "That looks great, how do we move forward?"

I send you a short list of items that we need to receive. We're going to a full pre-underwrite on those items. This is very different than what most loan officer do and this is how most loan officer get in trouble is they do pre-approvals. We do a full credit and income approval which means that our in-house initial underwriter is going to pre-underwrite all of your documents, your employment contracts, the information about your income based repayment, all your student loans. All of that is reviewed, we dive it our stamp of approval and issue a credit and income approval. That is like a blank check. If you find a house, it appraises, there's no problems with the title, we have money for you, we've committed to lend.

From there, you find your home, you write the offer, we walk you right through the process to closing and this is where it gets vital that we know what we are doing because at this point you are relocating your home, your family and your children across the country and it's important that we don't have any mistakes. So we are painstakingly aware of the potential issues and everyone on our team is trained to identify them early and once we issue an approval, rest assured you are in good hands.

But, don't take my word for it, what I'd love you to do is click on the upper left had corner and see what Dr. Trisha and Derek Twelves had to say about their dealings with our group.

The only way to really know is to do your own research and due diligence in searching out a mortgage lender. One of the ways that I'd suggest you do that is get on Google. Start researching them. See if you can get a list of their past clients and get a deeper understanding for who it is they serve in their community. One of the things I'd love you to do is take a look at this testimonial from Utah Medical Association Financial Services where they've endorsed us as their preferred lender.

"We have been very impressed with Josh and his team. In fact, I first learned of Josh through one of my physician clients. The feedback was so outstanding that I decided to contact Josh directly and meet. Since that time, we have been extremely impressed with Josh?s knowledge, customer service and ztrong desire to continually do what is right for his clients. As a result, we have been referring our clients to Josh and the feedback continues to be exceptional!"

They've done that because we have a deeper understanding of the physicians that we serve and that we're more adept at identifying the unique challenges and making sure that we get you into your home without any surprises.

If you have any other questions about this we'd be more than happy to answer them for you. We'd love you to check out the testimonial.

That's a really good and although I do love real estate and I think there's no better way to build wealth and tax deductions and all the benefits that come with owning a home, I think there is also a time when you should rent. The only way to really know how that should work for you is to identify the market and where you're buying, and then do a cost analysis. Take a look at what it's going to cost you to rent over the next coup;e of years and take into consideration that if you're in a booming economy or a hot economy that likely you're going to have rent raises over the next couple of years. And then take a look at where the real estate market is and then see what those payments look like. What are the payments on rent vs. the payments to buy and what are those costs going to look like over the amount of years that you expect to be in your home. And then I'd also encourage you to think about when you're buying a first residence or a primary residence that you're probably going to get one of the lowest interest rates in your entire life. And with that loan, it's expected that you live there for at least a year, but it is oftentimes a great opportunity to leverage that low interest loan into an investment after you move on, whether you're out of state or staying in the state moving into a larger home. But you can keep that as investment property. So, I'd love to counsel you and dive you advice on that directly and if there's anything we can do to be of service helping you break down those different costs we'd be happy to do it. We'd invite you to reach out to us directly for more information.

What it comes down to is really the underwriting guidelines. And the other piece of that is that most physician loans do not have mortgage insurance included. With a physician loan what you can typically expect is that we are going to have more liberal underwriting guidelines. We're going to allow you to qualify without student loan debt being counted, we're going to allow you to qualify for a higher loan to value. And we're going to allow you to close prior to starting your employment contract. That's really a key piece, because if you're relocating and starting a new position, often you don't want to move twice. You don't want to move into temporary housing, then find a home once you're on the job and then move again. With the more liberal underwriting guidelines, we're going to have a deeper understanding of your employment contracts, we're going to allow you to close, sometimes as early as 120 days before your employment contract starts, and then move into your home, then start your employment.

There are many differences between a physician loan and the more conventional product. What we like to start with typically is our initial interview where we decide if we're compatible with one another and we'll explore a little bit more about the solutions that we have for you. If you are trying to get this done now, are working 70 hours straight through, have about ten minutes to catch some rest and don't have a spare minute to talk on the phone for a compatibility interview, then you can go down to the bottom of the page and fill out a loan application and get things rolling! As always we'd invite you to reach out to us directly for more information.

That's a question we get all the time, and there's a couple of differences. With a physician loan, you're typically going to get a higher loan to value - maybe a 97% loan to value in most situations. You're also not going to have mortgage insurance, in most situations. Now that's not always the right solution for you, but that's typical of a physician loan.

And you're going to have more liberal underwriting guidelines. You're going to be able to exclude student loan payments or you are going to be able to work through the fact that you have not entered into income based repayment or your loans are not deferred for greater than a year. Those are solutions that are very problematic for a conventional loan, but are more compatible with our physician loan products and we're able to find the solution.

And then lastly, closing before your contract date. With a conventional loan, one of the big stumbling points is typically you've got to be on the job 30 days with the paycheck stubs in hand before you can close. With a physician loan product, we're able to get you closed prior to you actually starting your job. In some instances we can close you as much as 120 days prior to starting your employment contract. Now most people don't need that, but in some situations it becomes extremely useful. There's a few other nuances and as always, if there are any other questions you'd like us to answer, we'd invite you to contact us directly.

As a new physician or coming out of a fellowship or residency, you're often going to have you student loans coming into repayment. And those are always going to play a part in the underwriting process. So what we're going to do after we complete our initial conversation which we call a compatibility interview, is to take a look at your credit and your student loans and we're going to see exactly where you are in the repayment process. We're then going to analyze if they're in deferment or in forbearance and they're in a long enough period out that we don't have to count them. Or if we need to calculate what those student loans are going to be. Or sometimes you're going to go from a forbearance or deferment into an income based repayment structure.

We're gong to guide you through that process, make sure that you file all the correct paperwork such that we can get you through the loan process and not have any underwriting snags. This all comes back to part of our solution package which is to have specially trained underwriters, loan officers, processors who understand your situation and are able to guide you and your unique set of circumstances. We guide you through the process so that we don't have a snag. That's a little bit about student loans and how they'll affect you. If you have additional questions, as always, we'd invite you to reach out to us directly.

The most typical situation we see is someone coming out of med school, they're in that "no man's land" and they're in that period between where they've graduated med school, they've got about a six month period before their repayment begins, and at that point they're going to apply for income based repayment. Lenders really struggle with approving new residents during that period, because they don't have a means to identify what your payment is going to be. Because you haven't actually started repayment. What's different about the way we underwrite and advise clients is we will actually walk you through a process in that we can qualify off your income based repayment amount before you even enter into inceome based repayments. Where most lenders will have a real challenge with that "no man's land", as I call it, we're able to guide you through the process and make it seamless. We've done it for countless residents and even new Fellows that are starting income based repayment, and we'd be happy to advise you on how to get through that process as well. If you have any more specific questions about income based repayment, feel free to contact us. We'd be happy to help you.

Again, for residents, this is the most difficult thing for qualifying for a loan, because you are in that "no man's land" in between where you've graduated med school, and where you are starting your residency and you've got these student loans that are defered out for 6 months. And you don't even have to worry about this thing for 6 months. But, to a mortgage underwriter, they've got to think through that. So what we've gotten really good at is guiding you through that process. Whether you're going to go for an additional deferral or whether you're going to enter into income based repayment, we have a solution for you. We can tell you exactly what the process is and what paperwork needs to be filed so that we perfectly fit our underwriting guidelines and you don't have a problem qualifying. I know there's a lot of challenges out there surrounding this issue and there's a lot of questions. What I think you should know is we have a solution in store for you. We'll walk you exactly through the process and we've done it dozens, if not hundreds of times before for relocating residents and new residents so there is a solution there for you. If you have any specific questions about that or you'd like us to walk you through the process, feel free to shoot us an email or dive us a call.

Yes, almost all of our programs will allow for a gifted down payment. And I encourage you to take advantage of that because you've just accomplished something amazing in graduating med school. We have multiple programs and depending where you are with credit score and down payment amount, there's going to be different underwriting guidelines but virtually all of our programs will allow 100% gifted down payment and many of our programs - almost all of our programs as I think about it - do not require any reserves. We have probably the most liberal guidelines that I know where your down payment can come from and you don't need a bunch of additional money on top of the down payment when you get to closing in the form of liquid reserves which many lenders will require. So, if you have any additional questions about this we'd invite you to reach out to us directly.

That is a really good question and here's how I advise my clients to think through that. First of all, look at the interest rates you are accruing on your student loans. Let's just say you are at a 6.8% on those student loans, and that they're non tax deductible. So you're paying in real dollars 6.8% per year on the total amount of student loan debt that you're carrying. And then compare that to where interest rates are. And now also keep in mind with your interest rates on a home mortgage that it is tax deductible. So you can roughly shave off 20 - 30% of that interest rate because you're going to be able to write that off in your taxes. So let's say today interest rates are at 4.5% and you figure that you're in a 25 or maybe 30% tax bracket. Well then the true cost of that loan is maybe only somewhere closer to 3% or 3.5%, and if that is less than the student loan debt than you're carrying, then I would suggest putting a smaller down payment and then putting more money toward reducing your student debt. And if you'd like some help in calculating that for your exact situation, we'd be more than happy to do that as well. We'd invite you to contact us directly with any questions that you have.

Yes, absolutely, we have those products. But, what you should know, this isn't a one size fits all solution. We have many different products and depending on your particular situation with your employment contract, your credit scores, the amount of money you have down, where your down payment is coming from, how much student loan debt you have, where you are in your repayment process with student loans - we have different solutions that will fit all different types of situations. So, where we start is with a compatibility interview. Usually takes five to ten, maybe fifteen minutes over the phone. We walk through your specific situation and all the factors that are in play.

If you are trying to get this done now, are working 70 hours straight through, have about ten minutes to catch some rest and don't have a spare minute to talk on the phone for a compatibility interview, then you can go down to the bottom of the page and fill out a loan application and get things rolling!

And then we're going to dive you some advice on which loan program we think is best. Once we've done that, we usually do a cost breakdown or a cost analysis, where we're going to look at the difference between a physician loan product, an FHA product, and if you would qualify, a conventional product. And then we're going to make the best decision at that time on what the least costly solution for your financing is. So, we understand that you probably have a lot of questions about that and we'd be more than happy to answer them for you. We'd invite you to reach out to us directly.

That's all negotiable. What you should know is in a slow moving market, oftentimes buyers are able to ask the seller to cover their closing costs. That's just pretty much par for the course. When you see more of a fast moving market where there's very low inventory and the sellers kind of rule the roost, then oftentimes they are going to not pay your closing costs and you'll have to pay them yourself. And so how do yo upay them? There's a couple of different ways you can do that. You can do that in cash in addition to you down payment or you can actually roll it into your interest rate. So we've got several solutions there, where you say, "I'm probably only going to be in this house for 3 - 5 years" so maybe if we increase the intrest rate an eighth or a quarter percent, which typically is only going to kick up your payment between twenty five and fifty dollars a month, then you don't have to come to closing with tht additional money. So, we have solutions, we're more than happy to walk you through those depending on your specific situation. Don't let closing costs scare you, they are something we have a solution for. Thanks for watching and if you have any more questions we'd invite you to contact us directly.

The answer is, yes and yes. Many times we'll see residents who have been in med school and have no income to report and have not filed taxes at all. That is not a problem for us. What we are going to ask you to provide is simply a copy of your transcripts and eventually we'll need your original transcripts to prove that you've been in school. And then we're going to underwrite and calculate your income based off your employment contract or offer letter. So, not a problem for us at all. It is something that is unique to a physician loan product and most lenders would struggle with but you should know we have a solution there for you and that would allow you to close priorto you starting your employment contract.

It really is quite incredible, but you can have not filed taxes for two years, you can have hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans, and we can close you before you ever start the first day of your employment contract. Very unique solution that we have in store for our resident clients. So, if you have any additional questions, feel free to shoot us an email or dive us a call.

What we advise clients is to try and forecast where you're going to be in 5, 6, 7 years at the conclusion of that initial fixed period. When you talk about an ARM, the first thing you should know is there is usually a fixed period of the first 5, 7, or 10 years where the loan rate cannot change. It's guaranteed. And if it's likely that you're going to be relocating, or that your income is going to be increasing substantially over the next 5 or 7 years, then that product might be right for you. The other thing to keep in mind is, where will that payment move to and how much can it fluctuate at the conclusion of the fixed rate period. So they have what's called caps and every mortgage that's an adjustable rate will have caps. And that's at the end of that 5 year period, 7 year period, whatever the fixed period is, then each year thereafter it can only move up or down by so much. That's called interest rate caps.

So let's say you are on an FHA loan hypothetically, and at the end of the first five years it can only move up 1% per year, so it's going to have a relatively low effect on your overall payment. Some loans can move as much as 4% per year. What we advise clients to do is forecast where they're going to be at the end of the 5, 7 or 10 years. If they think it's more than likely they're going to be moving or their income is going to be greatly expanded and they're ready to move onto another home, then calculate your savings over that period of time (the amount you will save by having the lower interest rate during the initial fixed period) and then you can analyze if you think an ARM is right for you. If you have more specific questions on this or you'd like our help in running those numbers and doing the analysis, we'd be more than happy to do that. We'd invite you to reach out us with your specific questions.

The answer is, it really depends. And it depends on your exact situation. So if you're asking a lender to go to a much higher loan to value like let's say you're in a situation where you want 97% financing and you don't want to pay mortgage insurance, then yes, typically you're going to have a higher interest rate. if you're in a situation where you're putting five, ten percent down, then no, your loan as a physician loan should actually be more cost efficient.

So, when you think about a physician loan, we're either going to be more liberal in the loan guidelines, meaning higher loan to values or higher loan amounts or excluding student loan payments. But with those more liberal guidelines, understand that typically there's a little bit of a higher cost.

Now what I encourage clients to do when we look at a loan is we do a side by side comparison. So, we'll look at a physician loan and the total costs associated - there's no mortgage insurance so we're just talking about closing costs and interest rate. And we'll maybe compare that with how an FHA loan would look or a conventional loan would look. Those loans are typically going to have mortgage insurance, interest rate and then closing costs, and we're going to compare those two and I'll do a total cost analysis so you can see the differences.

So, it depends where you are and what situation fits best for you, but on average, I would say that you are going to pay about 1/8, maybe 1/4 percent more for a physician loan that has very specific underwriting guidelines, more liberal underwriting guidelines that will help you get approved. As always, if you have more questions about that, we'd invite you to contact us directly.

It's a great question and it's on the mind of most residents we talk to. So what you should know as a resident, whether you are coming out of med school or you're a transferring resident, there's a lot of change going on. In that student loans may be changing, income is definitely changing, new job, and you're relocating your family, and student loans are probably moving in and out of income based repayment and deferment and all of that adds complexity to the loan process.

So, two thing I would suggest. Number one, make sure you are working with someone who is an expert and understand physicians and physician lending. So I would just ask them: How many physicians have you worked with in the last year? How many residents have you worked with and closed in the last year? Could I speak to any of them?

Real simple, you're going to understand right away if they are an expert. And then I would check their testimonials. If you are actively working with physicians, there should be a number of past clients that you are able to speak with. And I think once you've done those two things, you've established they're an expert, you've viewed some of their testimonials, you're going to know right away if you're dealing with someone who'll do a great job for you or someone who may need a little more experience before they do your loan. If you have any other questions on that as always, we'd invite you to dive us a call.

The answer is yes. That's one of the biggest advantages of working with a physician loan vs. a conventional or an FHA or a more traditional loan product. Typically, underwriting guidelines are going to state that they want to see 30 days worth of paycheck stubs. So what that means to you is you would have to start your employment, wait two weeks before you got your first paycheck stub, then wait an additional two weeks before you got your second paycheck stub. So typically you're 30 to 45 days after you've started your new employment before you can qualify for a home loan. That's particularly troubling when you are relocating a family across the country. It means you are putting yourself into temporary housing or living with family for a while and then moving again for a second time.

The solution we have for you as a resident is that we will allow you to use your employment contract. And sometimes we don't even get a signed contract until after you close, sometimes we just have an offer letter and then we'll get the employment contract once you show up. But we'll use the offer letter or employment contract - we'll use that income to qualify you. And typically we can allow you to close 30 days prior to the start of that employment contract. So, yes, we can allow you to close before you start your job, and yes, you will only have to move once! If you've got any more specific questions on this, we'd be more than happy to answer them, we'd invite you to reach out to us.

We get this all the time, and for the clients who don't say it, they are probably thinking it. Like any other industry, there are the good guys and there's the bad guys. And you really need to make sure early in the process that you are dealing with someone that has testimonials and you have a really good gut feel for. The process is, and when you are shopping for a loan, you need to understand that what you're getting is not just on a piece of paper, like a Good Faith Estimate, but you're actually getting a service. What you're buying is how will that process of the loan, and closing and making sure you get to the closing table without any surprises - how will that person service you throughout that process? So that's the thing that you've got to assess and the best way to do that is to do some research on those lenders. Make sure you look at their testimonials, ask them if you can talk to past clients, and you're going to figure out real quick if those guys will deliver exactly what they've promised to you. So if you'd like to speak to any of our past clients of view our testimonial page we'd certainly invite you to do that and we'd be happy to dive you any other information you need.

Yes, but it's not going to give you as high of a loan to value as you would get with an existing construction. So, if you're building a home and you want 97% financing, we're going to struggle with that. If you're building a home and you have a challenge with student loans, maybe in deferment, or being new into private practice or being a 1099'd employee or maybe wanting to go into a 90% loan to value, then we have some solutions for you.

What you should know about this kind of product is they're going to be what's called a two time construction loan. So, you're going to close on the construction loan, that loan will typically be between 3 and 6 months while you build the home, and once the home is complete, we are going to refinance you to a long term construction. That's called a two time close as compared to a one time close. There are some lenders that allow one time closes, but none of them have any varying or bendable guidelines, specifically for physicians that I'm aware of. So a two time close, close on your construction loan, then refinance and get your long term financing. We do have some products available that will be more flexible, will bend the underwriting guidelines and are a little more liberal for physicians than they are for anyone else.

So this is a little bit more of a detailed conversation and there's many moving pieces when you talk about physicians relocating or starting new into practice and then the timing of two different loans. So, if you've got any questions about that, we'd invite you to email or contact us directly. We'd be happy to find out a little bit more about your situation and then dive you some specific answers.

Of course PIA is for pain in the *** and that's a question we actually got from a medical chat room and we go in there frequently and we try to understand the challenges that medical professionals are running into when they are getting home mortgages. And that's a question that comes up all the time - how big of a pain is this going to be? We think we bring a unique perspective and an advantage to you is our deeper understanding of those challenges that you're going to have. Those challenges surrounding student loans, new employment contracts, transferring across the country and the timing on the closing of your new home. And through our experience and deeper understanding, we're able to bring down that PIA factor substantially. However, understand that we are in the age after the mortgage meltdown and 2006 it was the glory days, if you could fog a mirror and you knew how to sign your name you could probably get a million dollar mortgage. That's not today. There's definitely more questions being asked, there's more due diligence, which is good for our real estate market. It's actually good for the state of our economy, but it's a little more work. Our deeper understanding is going to make it much less painful but you are going to have more questions and probably more detailed examination by underwriting to all the financial affairs. Basically all that means is a little more documentation. If you have any other questions on this, be happy to answer them, as always, we invite you to reach out to us directly.